Monday, June 25, 2012

TOO MANY HEROS

The commonplace hero

In
2011 I had the privilege of speaking by Skype with U.S. Army Capt. Don
Gomez, who was in graduate school in London between hitches. We were
talking about his remarkable New York Times blog post, "When Hero Rings
Hollow."

His refreshingly honest piece blew a big hole in the
comfortable notion that slapping yellow ribbons on our SUVs, clapping
for military personnel in airports and specifically, referring to all
who serve in the military as "heroes," somehow does great honor to the
troops.

Wrote Don: "I'm not the only veteran who feels skeptical
when he or she is placed in the hero bin along with every other service
member from the past 10 years. ... (T)hese are soldiers. Soldiers are
human beings. There are good ones and bad ones. A few do amazing, heroic
things. The rest do their jobs - incredible, unique jobs - but jobs,
nonetheless. Some perform happily, others grudgingly. And I argue that
most feel embarrassed when lauded as heroes."

I contacted Don
because some of those ideas play a part in a book I'm writing about my
grandfather, Alexander Bonnyman, Jr., who was awarded the Medal of Honor
after he was killed at Tarawa on Nov. 22, 1943. Like every one of the
score of active military or veteran I've interviewed during my research,
Don believes that the promiscuous application of "hero" has a lot more
to do with making us civilians feel better about ourselves than honoring
members of the military. They know heroism, and it doesn't apply to
everyone.

But woe betide the man who says so out loud -- particularly among men who have not themselves served in the military.

Just
ask MSNBC host Chris Hayes, who was bombarded with criticism and
threats when he expressed concern about how we overuse the word.

"I
feel uncomfortable with the word hero because it seems to me that it is
so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war," Hayes said.
"And I obviously don't want to desecrate or disrespect the memory of
anyone that has fallen. Obviously there are individual circumstances in
which there is tremendous heroism. ... But it seems to me that we
marshal this word in a way that's problematic, but maybe I'm wrong about
that."

In an eloquent follow-up comment, Hayes wrestled with the
question, noting that military volunteers submit "totally to what the
electorate or people in power are going to decide about how to use your
body, but they do that all of full volition. And if the word hero is not
right, there's something about it that's noble, right?"

The
critics pounced, branding him a traitor and putting words in his mouth.
For example, Hayes "thinks our soldiers are suckers and fools at best,
brutal sociopaths at worst," wrote Kurt Schlicter of Breitbart.com.

Never mind that he didn't.

But
there are so many problems with the "heroicization" of the military
that it's hard to know where to begin. (The quotes in this column are
taken from dozens of conversations I've had with active-duty military
and veterans in the last two years; not a single one is comfortable with
the "hero" craze.)

I begin with a simple question: If my
grandfather, who by all accounts conducted himself with "conspicuous
gallantry" at Tarawa, is a "hero," then what does it mean when we apply
the same label to a guy who joined the Army to see the world, maybe earn
a little college money, and spent his hitch as a cook at Fort Benning?

"It's
cheapened when you refer to everybody as a hero, and it tarnishes the
people who truly earned it," said Tennessee businessman Wes Stowers, who
flew P38s and F-4s in the post-Vietnam Air Force, when we spoke in
2011.

And is it any more accurate to bestow honorifics than to
apply ill-considered negative labels (think "baby killer")? The military
is a group of human beings. It has its saints and charlatans, liars and
truth tellers, thieves and heroes. Those who have served in the
military know that better than the rest of us. To call them all heroes
is simply a lie.

So why in the world do we civilians feel such a
compulsion to commit empty gestures of "appreciation" that aren't really
appreciated?

Every one of my correspondents agrees on one
factor: Guilt. After all, less than 1 percent of us serve in the
military now and less than 10 percent of Americans have ever served. But
boy are we ardent to send our armed forces into war: In 2001, just 22
percent of Americans opposed military action in Afghanistan, according
to an Ipsos poll; in 2003 just 27 percent of Americans objected to
sending troops to fight in Iraq.

"A lot of the men who are the
loudest with 'support the troops' tend to be the ones perfectly capable
of serving, but don't," says U.S. Army Capt. Gary Stump, who recently
returned to active duty after earning a master's degree at CU. "That's
partly why they're loud."

Dan Sidles, an Army vet who served two
tours in Iraq, notes the plethora of country songs about the wonders of
war that crop up when politicians start another war. (Google Clint
Black's "Iraq and I Roll" for a particularly cringe-inducing example.)

"If they're so ******* patriotic," Sidles says, "last I heard the Army and Marines are hiring."

I
could write a very long column indeed about other motivations, but I
don't have the space. Still, I can't resist relating one theory. Air
Force vet Andrew Bacevich thinks this may be partly the result of the
"everyone wins!" Baby Boomer parenting culture, in which the star player
on your kid's soccer team is deemed equal to the bumbler or complainer.

"The notion of heroism has become so commonplace that in some
respects it's become equivalent of the whole way kids' sports have been
transformed. Everybody gets a trophy, everybody is a winner," he says.
"That idea that to participate, mere participation, as the hallmark of
achievement, has become commonplace."

Ouch.

We can all try to outdo each other with meaningless demonstrations of support for the troops, but trust me, they aren't fooled.

Gomez
said his editors at the New York Times removed the following idea from
his post, fretting that it would offend (civilian) readers: The phony
praise is "a cop out meant to replace hard time (in the military).

When
you say military people are all heroes, it's almost like, 'Since we have
called you a hero, the best thing we can possibly do, we don't really
owe you anything else. I've called you a hero, what else do you want?'"
OK. But it's just a harmless bit of rhetoric, isn't it?

5 comments:

You might add, Biz, that Indiana had one-class basketball until the beginning of the 1997-1998 season when they went to four classes. For an old fart like me, that spelled the end of the enjoyment of high school basketball. Probably half the people in the State followed the tournament and watched the State Finals. Multi-class basketball, where everyone is given a better chance to be a hero/champion killed the interest and the audience. Is a hot topic of contention to this day.

Gents - I agree. When I was in HS, it was still single class and it was great going up against the Goshens and Elkharts of Northern Indiana. We never made is past the sectional, but we lost to great teams. And PL, you are right - back in the day, everyone tuned in to the HS state tournament because everyone had a shot at being the sole state champion.

With everyone in the State watching when they presented the Trester award and asked the recipient where he planned to play college ball, can you imagine a player naming an out-of-state school? I remember current NBA coach Scott Skiles from Plymouth, Indiana, who was Mr. Basketball or some such thing and had a stellar HS career. When he announced he was going to play for Michigan State, shocked Hoosiers considered that treasonous, and to this day many (including me) consider him a traitor.Now, since no one pays attention to HS basketball, the blue chippers can choose Ohio State or N. Carolina and no one even notices.

I don't believe everyone who dons a uniform is a hero. I spent 14 months with a combat unit during the bloodiest year of the Vietnam war and never considered myself a hero. My definition of hero is a man who shows great courage in the face of life or death situations.Here is picture proof that not all in the military are inspiring heroes. You'll get a laugh out of it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2107338/Gay-marines-follow-wake-lesbian-home-coming-kiss.html

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